Why We Think Amazon Australia Will Launch Any Day Now

Amazon recently opened its first Australian factory in Dandenong South and workers have begun rolling in to start their new life as Amazonians. We haven't received word on the exact date that Amazon Australia will be open for business, but based on the huge sales month in November, we think it'll be any day now. Here's why.

Amazon is finally launching a shopping service in Australia - which means you will soon be able to buy everything from food to electronics without paying those exorbitant international shipping fees. Here's everything we know about Amazon's arrival Down Under so far.

November Is An Insane Month For Online Sales

For Amazon Australia to kick off with a retail-store-destroying BANG, it would be silly not to launch in the next two weeks. Amazon has built such goodwill with consumers in other regions during the Christmas shopping period that it would be unbelievable to see them wait out November and miss the biggest sale days of the year.

Breaking it down, there are four huge online shopping events over the next three weeks:

Singles Day on November 11

Click Frenzy on November 14

Black Friday on November 24

Cyber Monday on November 27

I wouldn't expect to see much come from Singles Day. This is a particularly big spend day in Asian markets, but doesn't quite have the global penetration of the latter three. Click Frenzy is only a week away, so if Amazon was going to launch before that, you'd think we would have heard rumblings by now.

That leaves the biggest sales day of the year: Black Friday.

Black Friday

Routinely, Amazon in the US and the UK don't just run deals on Black Friday, but also have huge savings across the board in the weeks leading up to Black Friday. Currently, if you go to the Amazon US site, you'll find that there are a stack of pre-Black Friday deals already available.

Although Black Friday is considered one of, if not THE, busiest sales day of the year, retailers have to ensure that they stay one step ahead of their competitors. Black Friday isn't necessarily an Australian institution but will Amazon look to capitalise on the momentum they've gained in other regions? Absolutely they will. With only two weeks until Really Good (Black) Friday (that's what I'm calling it), I wouldn't be surprised to hear a launch announcement by November 17.

Comments

Black Friday is meaningless to Australia though.Why wouldn't they just do a big opening sale when they commence service? Doesn't have to be on a US holiday, they can open with a big sale whenever they want.

It doesn't actually matter how culturally relevant black friday and thanksgiving is in Australia, all that really matters is are heavy discounts effective in Australia? Of course, the answer is yes.

A good place to look is the UK. They've had Amazon (not in the tax sense of the word) for almost 20 years, and it's been a marketplace there since the early 2000's. The British also tend to culturally dislike things seen as "American" like Halloween. Yet introducing black friday to the British over the last few years has been pioneered by amazon and it's been incredibly successful. It also works out for the best, black friday gives an extra sales period - Amazon still have to go in for boxingday sales when the british retailers do as well.

Even black Friday sales themselves aren't really. Go look in America and you'll see that many of them now start earlier and run for longer, even cyber monday is more of a cyber week, just like our boxing day sales are on track to start the last week of september at the current rate.

Amazon will do here what they've done everywhere because it's phenomenally successful. Flash sales on black friday ... you only have to do that once, and black friday is a thing here regardless of whether it was before.

My guess is they're launching any day just because we've been hearing that their fulfilment centres (factories? c'mon now LH!) have been stocking up with tech for weeks, and tech prices are volatile - you want stock, but you don't want the prices to go down whilst you sit on it.

It's perfect timing for them - they want to bring black friday to australia because they're very very good at it, they want to launch in the biggest shopping period of the year, they've said several times they plan to do here what they've done everywhere and seriously undercut their competition to gain marketshare at the loss of profits, all the ducks are lined up.

If I asked every person I know what BlackFriday/Cyber Monday is, I would be very surprised if any of them had ever heard of it. Maybe a couple of the younger kids at work but certainly none of my friends or neighbours. And I'd be pretty sure that once I'd explained what it was, most of them would have the same disdainful attitude towards it that they have towards Halloween - more Americanisation of our culture - so they'd mostly see it very negatively, I think.

After all, the it is based around Thanksgiving, it doesn't have any cultural relevance here. They'd be better off doing a big ANZAC Day sales event or something on Australia/Invasion Day. Lastly, Click Frenzy is the local answer to Black Friday/Cyber Monday, that's why it was created, so it would make more sense to do that.

We're in a position to confirm that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are very popular in Australia. We get a ton of local traffic through Google search referrals for these events. (i.e - lots and lots of Aussies are searching for these phrases.)

The benefit for customers is that like the Americans and Brits, we would be able to take advantage of the (usually) best prices of the year in the lead up to Christmas buying, not the day after. We go over every 2 years and plan the trip so we arrive on Black Friday. The night before we leave we are able to get online and ship to store (or our friend's place) a lot of the things we are after. When we arrive there is no traffic in LA and it is an easy drive out of the city (usually towards Vegas). We can then stop at outlet malls along the way and get some really impressive bargains. I for one am very keen for Amazon to start up here, and if they do Black Friday prices for us, that is all the better.

Well, the only problem with the promt start you re talking about is that they didn't even start to hire Fc associates (the most basic labor). They only hired management and support staff. I observed how Polish FC started in 2015 and it took another month or two to hire and train labor. So we are looking at December or even next year.

I thought they did hire some? Ah must have been confused. To be hoenst I'm actually interested to see how many associates they actually hire - as the newest centre, in a country with the highest wages, I think we're gonna see an awful lot of automation in their australian centres.

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